Good morning. Yes, it is a Monday. Cloudy start to our Monday, 32 degrees with a slight breeze from the Southwest. Once the clouds fade away this morning, look for partly sunny conditions and a seasonable high of 46 degrees. Already some breaks in the clouds. Sunset tonight is at 7:09 pm with darkness at 7:38. Have a great day!
March 20, 2016 Night
Good evening. I think today was a pretty good start for the first day of spring. I walked over 10 miles when you include the walk on the Albany County Rail Trail, Albany Pine Bush and the evening walk. Some more sun would have been nice but we are avoiding yet another snow storm, but we got some of the clouds and the air pressure has dropped down to 30 bars even. Despite the clouds, it is still 38 degrees with calm wind. It feels fairly mild outside, especially if you have a sweater on. By the time the Waxing Gibbous Moon, getting close to full, sets tomorrow morning at 4:35, it may be clear enough to see it. Although, I think most of clearing will occur shortly after sunrise. 11 hours and 45 minutes of darkness tonight.
Tomorrow the sun rises at 6:54 AM with the skies clearing out for a mostly sunny day. Seasonable weather expected with a high of 44 degrees. A little warmer, maybe 47 degrees and continued sunny weather for Tuesday. Should be a nice start to the week. Not quite summer, but it will be summer before you know it. Tomorrow marks 10 weeks until Memorial Day. The average high for Memorial Day is 73 degrees and an average low of 52. Darkness takes over on Memorial Day around 9 PM. Not too bad in the grand scheme of things. Perfect weather for enjoying the black flies.
Ankle is a bit sore after all the walking but I got to see a lot of interesting places. You see a lot more walking then driving. Holt Preserve has some nice trails and broken views of the surrounding lands. The Albany County Rail Trail was a nice hike, but I wish I had gotten down a little further to get into the gorge. That said, I think I will have plenty of time to explore the trail in the future when I am not so pressed for time. The trail certainly gets nicer as you head deeper into the gorge. We had a good turn out at the Save the Pine Bush Hike. Pictures to be uploaded over the next few days. All and all a pretty good weekend.
Got my kitchen cleaned up, went grocery shopping for week, and washed my truck. Did my wash yesterday at my folks house and got them put away. Pretty much ready for next week, took a sleeping pill, and plan to get a very good night sleep.
I’m hoping that I have Good Friday off but it’s a bit hard to say with the budget. If I have Good Friday off, I would like to go tent or lean-to camping at a local state forest. It would be a fun way to spend the last weekend of March, especially if it is quite mild. I will be on call next weekend, so I can’t get too far off the grid. Also, I need to fix the lights in my truck cap, which some of the wires have pulled lose on.
Sleep well. It’s been a good weekend and we should hopefully have a good week going forward if all goes well.
March 20, 2016 Afternoon
As we head into the 1 pm hour, we are right at the freezing point or maybe a degree above it. Overcast skies, with some of the clouds pushing in from the storm that is riding up the coast. Air pressure is at 30.18 bars and falling as the low pushes off. The latest models have Albany with a 20% chance of snow showers which is up a bit from earlier. We might reach 40 degrees this afternoon but don’t expect it to go beyond that with the clouds. Sunset is at 7:08 pm.
Went for about a two hour hike this morning along the Albany County Rail Trail. Hiked from my place off Elm Avenue to where the rail trail junctions Adams Place, then took the rail trail about two miles, about a quarter mile beyond Rockefeller Road, down to where the trail overlooks the Normans Kill. I would have liked to hiked down to the Normans Kill bridge, a but time wouldn’t allow that as I needed to be home by 12:30, so I could have lunch and freshen up before the Save the Pine Bush Hike. While the suburban parts of the trail are kind of boring, when you get into the Normans Kill gorge, the trail winds a bit more and it’s pretty scenic. The trail being a railroad grade, is a nice easy grade, making for good walking. Lots of yuppies and dog walkers on the trail, but it’s wide and blacktopped after the Delaware Avenue overpass. East of Adams Place, there are no at grade road crossings which makes for quick hiking and gentle grades, I my obese self, made an average of 3.2 miles per hour. My morning walk totalled a little over 6 1/2 miles, which ain’t bad. Plus I have the Save the Pine Bush Hike in one hour.
So don’t forget about the Save the Pine Bush Hike today at 2 pm. Cloudy maybe, but I’ll try to make it worth your time. Occasionally the sun peaks out. The hike is going to be at the East Blueberry Hill Trail Head, near Kiddie Academy and 13 Columbia Circle in the big sprawling office campus where years ago I worked a temporary job. Hopefully people will show up, otherwise it will be a nice solitary hike.
Palm Sunday 2016 morning
Good morning folks on this quite sunny but cold Sunday morning, which happens to be Palm Sunday and the first day of calendar spring. The mercury reads 24 degrees but with a northerly breeze, it feels more like a raw 16 degrees. The rest of the day will be mostly sunny with a high around 43 degrees, about 3 degrees below normal. Sunset tonight is at 7:08 pm which is a little over 1 minute later than yesterday. Seasonable warm for mid-March returns on Monday under partly sunny skies, and it gets back to above slightly average warmth for the second half of the week with more rain in the forecast.
I hope your enjoying your first day of spring. Not only is Easter next weekend, we have only six weeks remaining until May Day, when the average high is 65 degrees in Albany and darkness doesn’t prevail until nearly 8:30. Spring’s warmth will be on us shortly. Probably in a little over a month with the mild spring, Albany will start to green up pretty well.
To clear up any confusion, there are 12 hours and 12 minutes of daylight in Albany on the Vernal Equinox, aka the first day of spring. The 12 hours of daylight and darkness occurs sometime before the Vernal Equinox, due to refraction because the sun appears as a ball of light so part of it appears on the horizon before the whole sun does. Equal day and night occurred in Albany on March 17, down closer the equator it occurs either in late February or early March.
Happy Birthday to the late Fred Rogers of Mr. Rogers, the popular kids program on PBS, that I loved to watch. Will you be my neighbor, the program famously asked, as the train went through his wall to a magical community. Mr. Rogers was born today in 1928, and he passed away in 2003.
Happy Birthday also to the Grand Old Party, aka the Republican Party which was born today in 1854, providing a check on the once pro-slavery Democratic Party after the Whig Party stopped existing. With Donald Trump as their presumptive nominee for president and increased division in the GOP, it will be interesting to see how much of a future the party has.
March 19, 2016 Night
As we head into the 10 o’clock hour, we are right about freezing on this moonlit night. Despite the moonlight, the stars are pretty nice. There is a slight northwest breeze this evening but really quite pleasant for mid-March. About 3/4rd of the Waxing Gibbous Moon is visible tonight until around 3:30 in the morning. The low tonight is expected to be around 19 degrees which is about 8 degrees below normal. 11 hours and 48 minutes of darkness tonight.
Tomorrow will start out sunny but with increasing clouds as the day progresses. Sunrise tomorrow is around 6:55 AM but darkness will fade away about an half hour earlier. Cool day on tap tomorrow, the mercury is expected only to reach 40 degrees, which is about 7 degrees below for the first day of spring. Temperatures back in the fifties for the second half of the week. The snow storm heading up the coast may bring some clouds and maybe a flurry to Albany, but for the most part I think it will be a non event for us.
Save the Pine Bush Hike is tomorrow at 2 pm. I’m leading it from Blueberry Hill East at 13 Columbia Circle near the Kiddie Academy. It’s at 2 pm. It should be a nice hike, even if the clouds start to prevail by later in the afternoon.
So tomorrow is the first day of spring. 30 days left until tax day which happens to be April 18th this year due to a federal holiday. I’ve done my taxes but I owe the state $200. But on a more positive note, April 18th has an average high of 60 degrees which would be nice after the recent frigid weather. Civil twilight aka full darkness doesn’t come on that day until 8:11 pm. Day length grows quickly around that first day of spring.
Decided to dump the blog post templates I’ve been using in recent months to get back to a more free-form blogging style. They were convenient but didn’t really save much time, and just seemed literally scripted, because they were. I did put together an internal portal, so I could easily reference the weather data I needed for my blog posts.
Went for my evening walk. While not real warm out, it still is pretty pleasant. I can’t complain about the weather and the later sunsets but I still wish summer would be here sooner than later.
Left my laptop at my parent’s house, which means I can’t upload the photos I took today. Kind of annoying. I don’t use my laptop that much anymore now that I have my Smartphone, but I do need it to transfer photos from my camera to my phone and for map creation purposes. Oh well. It’s much more devastating to not have a working phone. That said, I had a pretty nice St. Patrick’s Dinner at my parents house. I did Sunday dinner a day early due to the possibility of snow tomorrow evening.
All and all I think it was a pretty good Saturday, even if it got off to a lazy start.
March 19, 2016 morning
Good morning, Happy Saturday. Cold start to this morning, around 26 degrees but clear. Later today look for a high of 42 with a few clouds creeping in, which is about 4 degrees below normal. Sunset tonight is at 7:07 pm, which is 1 minute and 12 seconds later then yesterday. Civil twilight when it gets hard to see outside is 7:38 pm tonight. 12 hours and 8 minutes total of daylight today.
The latest models show the winter storm pushing further off the coast, so continued cool but sunny weather for Sunday with a high only around 40. Some clouds may push in during the evening but precipitation seems increasingly unlikely. Winter has mostly kicked the bucket, the first day of calendar spring is Sunday.
13 years ago today was the start of the Iraq War. It seems like it was just yesterday. How quickly things change. Fortunately, it seems like this chapter of American history has rapidly come to a close but it reminds us to be wise towards selection of our president.
No real plans for today, but I’m thinking about going for a walk along the new Normans Kill bike trail for a bit. Or I might go somewhere in the hill towns for a hike. We will see.
March 18, 2016 night
Good evening. Currently we are starting to clear out and we are down to 37 degrees. Going to be a seasonable evening tonight with lows around 25.
Tomorrow will be sunny but cool, with the high only about 39 degrees or about 5 degrees below normal. Lots of sunshine expected but a stiff breeze will mean windchills around 30.
Waxing Gibbous Moon with 60% visible. It will set around 3:30 am. Full Worm Moon on Tuesday. Sunrise tomorrow around 7 am with first light about an earlier earlier.
A cold night compared to recent. For sure. But let’s be honest, we still are in the middle of March. We expect cold weather to last for a while longer.